poita

Vandenberg, J.Smith, Kolodjashnij - we can afford to keep one of those injury plagued players on our list as a project player. The rest can go. If Vandenberg is not kicking the ball by Christmas, hopefully he does the right thing by the club and retires. We've certainly looked after him well enough over the journey. We clearly would given that we gave him a 3 year contract on the basis of 7 games in 2 years.

Because over the next couple of years we will lose Lewis, Jones, Jetta, Hibberd and Garlett, most of whom are regulars, from an already poor team and the replacements are not obvious. We should have quality young players with a couple of years on the list ready to take over when the time comes.

There were most likely less than 10,000 Melbourne supporters there on Saturday night out of a supposed membership base of 52,000. We were massively outnumbered. It was a disgraceful turnout, irrespective of how bad the team has been playing.

The Josh Jenkins who is 31 before next season starts? I'd be disappointed if we didn't ask serious questions re Patton at the asking price.

Is it only Melbourne supporters who are happy with supposedly honourable losses? I'm surprised the players didn't get a standing ovation at half time for showing the required level of intensity for a half. I'm pretty sure Fremantle didn't turn up against Geelong thinking they would just fumble and bumble their way to a 5 goal loss. Carlton fell behind against West Coast after half time, but at least showed regained momentum at times thereafter. Ditto St Kilda. Ditto the Bulldogs. All teams that we should be well ahead of in our development. Scoring Shots 28 v 15 Inside 50s 70 v 37 Marks Inside 50 19 v 9 The final margin flattered us and Richmond should have won that game by over 10 goals. Their goal kicking was the only thing that kept it close. 39 tackles in those conditions is pathetic - the number of times our players just halfheartedly waved their arms at a Richmond player as they strolled by was extraordinary. 14 players with zero or one tackles for the night. Gawn was excellent around the ground, Fritsch good up forward, Petty did some decent things, Dunkley kicked two good goals. Very hard to find positives beyond that. Oliver is so predictable with his short handpasses to teammates under pressure; Brayshaw can't find the ball; Jones & Viney are like the generals of old, fighting the war from the safety of their tents 10 miles from the front line; Lever can't kick and won't be accountable for his opponent; Preuss is a liability. Three more honourable losses to go and we can lay this season to rest.

So why did he come back at all? He clearly hasn't been fit at any stage this season. Shocking player management.

This one could be ugly - hard to see where Casey get their goals from.

Good to see we are carrying on with the ridiculous changes - why change a season long habit at this point? Two defenders come out so we bring in four forwards. I assume that means Fritsch will play back again, which is utterly stupid given his recent form. Yet we have Hore sitting in the VFL. No issue with Oscar playing - at least he can get on the field most weeks, which is more than can be said for May and Lever. Tim Smith must be the most fragile human this side of the bubble boy. What's wrong with him this week - broken fingernail, chapped lips? Surely he is done as an AFL footballer. Are the club going to pull out the same utter BS about Jetta's unrelated knee injuries again? It is indisputable that we played him injured earlier in the season which led him to missing 10 weeks or so of football. We brought him back too early and now he is out again. Utterly pathetic. Put him in cotton wool for the rest of the year and get him right for round 1 next year. Kennedy-Harris finally gets another chance after being brought back too early against Adelaide. Yet again, terrible player management. At this point he has to better value than Neal-Bullen, but why has it taken him two months to get the switch made? That said, why haven't we given ANB a different role at some point to get him more involved in the play.

It would be such a Melbourne act to sell the farm for a player at the peak of his powers and highest value (as we did with Lever). The only way from there is down. A better managed club would find a player who has dropped in value and back themselves in to revive them with a change of scenery (eg Essendon with Stringer). Of course, the top clubs just use free agency to stock up - an avenue which is not available to perennial underachievers.

Is a supplement still a supplement if it makes you perform worse? Perhaps whatever we are taking should be called a decrement.

I can't believe we are paying the bloke $800K a year to not take one of the opposition's best two forwards. Oscar McDonald gets relentlessly criticised around here, but he isn't playing on players the calibre of Doulton Langlands as Lever is.

You know what they say about ifs and buts ...

If it is in a trade for Lever and his giant pay packet, then it sounds good to me.

https://www.afl.com.au/news/2019-07-31/who-has-the-best-crop-of-u23s-we-rank-them-from-worst-to-best This is what happens when you basically ignore the draft for three consecutive years. The Lever debacle in particular has set us back a long way. We have no option but to hit the draft hard this year and restock the list.

I can't comprehend why we keep allowing / instructing our key forwards to lead to the same spots. Yes, a clash of heads is a total accident and completely unavoidable in a contact sport, but that particular incident wouldn't have happened if they were leading in different directions. You never see Darling and Kennedy in the same areas.

Sure, much better to go ten straight years without playing finals.

Disposals 370 v 332 Inside 50s 60 v 39 Scoring Shots 29 v 20 Tackles 79 v 63 Against the 14th ranked side, who sacked their coach a fortnight ago. If St Kilda had kicked better for goal we would have lost that game by 8 - 10 goals. We were dreadful for most of the night and unfortunately half of our current side is not AFL standard, including some big names (starting with Lever).

My son's under 9s team plays a lot like Melbourne does. Numbers around the football, blind kicks forward, heaps of entries into the forward line. Only difference is those kids would rather lose a limb than give up a shot at goal, whereas Melbourne players prefer to pass off from anywhere outside the goal square. Probably why the kids have won 8 of 11 and Melbourne has won 5 of 18.

The biggest problem with Lever is that he thinks he is a much better player than he actually is. It would do his ego some good to spend some time in the VFL learning how to kick and defend his opponent.

Didn't Spargo just have a rest, shortly after the mid season break? Now he is AWOL again. Our management of Hannan this year has been absolutely putrid. Good to see Melksham and Stretch back .

Being sub-175 cm tall doesn't automatically preclude you from being an AFL player, but it does put you at a serious disadvantage. Recent history shows that if you are sub-175 cm, slow and don't kick goals, your chances of being a long term AFL player are very slim indeed. Those that make it are generally elite at something else (eg Caleb Daniel's disposal and decision making), which is why I don't think any of Spargo, Bedford or Chandler will make it and why Kennedy-Harris has possibly played his last game.

https://www.heraldsun.com.au/leader/localfooty/vfl/vfl-2019-lyon-labs-casey-fields-vfl-ground-a-cow-paddock/news-story/b6203e35d4c80aed23b0244a0992fc54 Remind me again what we get from the Casey arrangement. A Z-grade facility many miles from our traditional supporter base and our home ground; a constant struggle to attract decent VFL listed players to ensure a competitive environment for our developing players; crowds that are a fraction of what D-grade VAFA teams attract; and a truckload of money wasted. I would love to know how many paid up members we have from the Casey area as a result of the 11 years we have spent down there, because I find it hard to believe that many young families from the area are travelling 90 minutes each way to see Melbourne play at the MCG. And they certainly aren't going to watch the VFL side play.

We had no choice but to play Preuss over the past two weeks because Weideman, Smith and McDonald were all unavailable - in an ideal world he wouldn't have played either of those games. He is either a number one ruckman, or a number two ruckman against sides with two strong rucks (eg Port). If he plays forward he will do best as a third tall, where he can hopefully get a mismatch against a smaller opponent. That said, I didn't notice him being run off too often in either game, and our forward structure was as good yesterday as it has been for a number of weeks. If he can ruck 30-40% of the game and play forward 30-40% to give us a different look, I think it is worth persevering with him in the side. If it gives Max a decent chop out and allows him to play forward at times, that is a massive bonus for us.

Bedford & Chandler 4 kicks between them - no way either is going to be an AFL player, so delist one this year and one next. Hannan continues his woeful season with the princely sum of 1 behind for the afternoon. He should be dominating at that level, regardless of conditions. He looks as though he is happy just to be in an AFL environment - doesn't want to overexert himself at any point. Maynard 12 touches in conditions that were made for him, very disappointing. I assume he knows he is done. I know some people rate Smith, but when does he ever dominate VFL games? He'd likely be a better AFL option than Preuss at the moment, but he is not the future of the club so I have no issue with them playing Preuss for the rest of the year. Kielty had a taste of AFL, and has given nothing since going back to the VFL. Surely he is gone with so much defensive depth at the club. Baker should play against St Kilda next week, but it is hard to make a case for any of the others.

Both Wagners in - the tank for pick 2 is on.